The grandfather of Shakeil Boothe, the 10-year-old boy beaten, chained and starved to death in his Brampton home, said the boy’s father complained Shakeil was “giving him problems.”

Burke Boodthe took the stand Tuesday. It was he who pulled back the bedsheets on May 27, 2011, to discover Shakeil lifeless, his body bruised and stiff.

“Something cold just ran down my back,” Boodthe, a former Jamaican police officer, told the court. “I could tell he was lifeless.”

He then told his son to call 911, Boodthe said.

Garfield Boothe, 34, and Nichelle Boothe-Rowe, Shakeil’s stepmother, are charged with second-degree murder. They both pleaded not guilty.

Shakeil’s behaviour had become a problem in the house, Boodthe said. He had no idea his grandson was dead when he was called to the house.

Boothe’s defence lawyer, John Rosen, argued that Boodthe had lied to police and was, in fact, responsible for cleaning up the crime scene before police arrived to investigate.

“As an ex-police officer, a security man, would you have any idea how to clean up at a crime scene and stage the death of a little boy?” Rosen asked.

Silence fell over the courtroom for 10 long seconds.

“You’re something else,” Boodthe finally said, looking to the glass-enclosed prisoners’ box. “Garfield should come up and speak the truth.”

Rosen also questioned the grandfather’s mixed testimony. Boodthe first told police he saw Shakeil “over a year ago,” but later at a birthday party in March, two months before his death.

Boodthe claimed he was still in shock when police interviewed him hours after finding Shakeil’s body.

A Crown prosecutor previously told the court that Boothe-Rowe fled Canada with her 2-year-old baby on May 26, the day she found Shakeil’s lifeless body.

Boothe-Rowe was arrested at the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie on May 30.

Hours after Shakeil was found, Boothe-Rowe took a bus to the U.S. with her baby, the accused woman apparently told CAS. She hoped to find a family member to take her baby, Crown prosecutor Kelly Slate said.

“Once she was safely in the United States they would then call 911,” Slate said.

Photos of Shakeil’s body were projected on a courtroom screen Tuesday. In all 13 pictures — close-ups of Shakeil’s legs, arms, neck — a police detective found evidence of bruises, cuts and old scars.

Shakeil was chained to his bed every day while his father was at work, the Crown alleged. Boothe-Rowe would sometimes unchain him while the father was away, but Shakeil was told to lock himself back up before Boothe came home, Slate said.